South Asia Citizens Web

Video recording of a speech by Dr Felix Padel delivered to the conference ‘Challenging Capitalist Modernity–Alternative Concepts and the Kurdish Quest‘, on 3–5 February 2012 at Hamburg University.

Close to Delhi University, 26, Alipur Road in Civil Lines is an enormous property with two wings and two gardens, divided by a large driveway. The current structure stands in place of the residence where B.R. Ambedkar died in late 1956. It’s designated a national monument but hardly gets the footfalls of the memorials of Gandhi or Nehru also located in the capital. When I went in one evening, a security guard asked me to remove my shoes. He then showed me around the dusty premises, which house a few photographs, placards in Hindi and English bearing Ambedkar’s words, and books in steel cupboards that have seldom been opened.

it is now time for the nation to consider a ’no-development cess’, paying the Himalayan states to protect mountains, rivers and forests instead of exploiting them, so that India can be ecologically secure. The integrity of the Himalayan landscape is essential to the well-being of the entire subcontinent.

An election campaign poster in Hindi by the Aam Admi Party widely seen on the back of three wheeled auto rickshaws in Delhi, says that "if you vote for the corrupt, rapes of women will continue". The poster is making a disgusting political use of rapes and sexual violence against women. Its seems to suggest that rapes have to do with a political party or with the party in power and or in the govt., a pretty reductionist view of patriarchy this.

massive illegal diversion of the Kaval commons, also designated “District Forests”, has been undertaken to allow Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to establish a massive nuclear enrichment centre, Defence Research Development Organisation to test its drones for civilian and military surveillance, Indian Institute of Science to establish a Synchrotron and a satellite application centre of Indian Space Research Organisation, all for a paltry payment of Rs. 30-35,000/acre. In addition, Sagitaur Ventures Pvt. Ltd., a IT real estate developer has been provided 1000 acres of this biodiversity rich grasslands to site a solar pond and at a ridiculously low lease rent of Rs. 45 lakhs (USD 75000/-). In anticipation of these developments, Karnataka Housing Board has already constructed villas and neighbourhoods illegally in the grasslands and it is speculated that the Indian Army may demand another 10,000 acres to establish its camp. None of these developments have complied with any of the statutory clearance requirements required under laws protecting grazing pastures, forests, environment, biodiversity, forest rights, etc.